Review: Days of Blood & Starlight

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

THIS IS NOT THAT WORLD.

Art student and monster’s apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is — and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

My Review

Okay, so I’m finding this to be a difficult review to put together. Days of Blood & Starlight started off a bit slow and boring and I kept thinking I can’t wait to get it over with so I can move on to another book. But, I had to keep going, because the first book was so good and I will want to read the next one. So, I read, bored and anticipating just getting it over with. But then, the end…Oh my God, the ending…The ending slapped me right in the face and I could not, for the life of me, put the bloody book down! The ending was so intense and action-packed and just filled with everything captivating and wonderful. The ending of this novel was the Starlight that previously had been a pool full of Blood I had to begrudgingly swim through to get to it.

The characters were really good. I think I liked Karou more in Days of Blood & Starlight than in Daughter of Smoke & Bone. She seemed very different in this book. She definitely grew as a character and she seemed more mature. But, she was also a bit darker of a character in this one, which was good and bad in ways. Akiva didn’t seem too much different. But I liked him in the first book, so I still like him now. He has a moment near the end, though, that is so totally badass! It was awesome!

The writing was, of course, great. I’m not sure I enjoyed the writing quite as much as I did in Daughter of Smoke & Bone, but there is no doubt that Taylor is a fantastic writer.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Daughter of Smoke & Bone. If you are bored like me in the beginning, just remember the kickass ending I talked about! Now, how do I rate this book? It should be possible to rate the first half separately from the second half! Ah well…

4 Responses to “Review: Days of Blood & Starlight”

Oh good! Thats a relief! I have the first book sitting right here and when I began to read this review, I was wondering if I should even bother reading it. Now I know I can expect to enjoy both the first book and this second one too! Yay! 🙂